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84 Dead in Pattani: "This is typical"


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By Noppawan Bunluesilp

 

PATTANI, Thailand (Reuters) - Almost 80 people died of suffocation in southern Thailand while being taken to detention at a military barracks after a violent demonstration, a justice ministry official said on Tuesday.

 

Only six people were previously believed to have been killed in the violence in the Muslim-dominated region on Monday, but the official said 78 others later died of suffocation.

 

"We found no wounds on their bodies," the official, Manit Sutaporn, told a news conference in Pattani, a provincial capital 1,100 km (700 miles) south of Bangkok.

 

He said the 78 victims were among hundreds arrested after the 1,500-strong rally was dispersed from outside a police station in Narathiwat province.

 

The deaths appear to have occurred while the men were being taken in trucks to a military barracks in Pattani, a journey that took five hours, Major General Sinchai Nutsatit told the news conference.

 

Army spokesman Akom Pongprom confirmed the toll and cause of death as suffocation. He said the bodies were being kept at the barracks.

 

Troops and police fired live rounds, as well as water cannon and teargas, during a six-hour standoff on Monday with the crowd of Muslims demanding the release of six villagers accused of handing over government-issue shotguns to militants.

 

Shots were also fired from the crowd, officials said, adding that some of the protesters were under the influence of drugs or were frail because of fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

 

Six protesters were killed in the violence, and 20 people injured.

 

"This is typical," Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told reporters when asked about accounts of scores dead. "It's about bodies made weak from fasting. Nobody hurt them."

 

POLICE MAY HAVE BENE ATTACKED

 

Security officials justified the use of force in Monday's clashes, saying they feared the police compound in the heart of the restive region would be attacked.

 

Police and military posts have been frequent targets in a 10-month long insurgency that is looking increasingly like a revived Muslim separatist movement in Thailand's three southern-most provinces along the Malaysian border.

 

"We had to use force otherwise they could have ransacked the police station and set fire to it," southern police chief Manote Graiwong told a Bangkok radio station.

 

Thailand's deep south is home to most of its Muslims, who make up 10 percent of the mainly Buddhist nation's 63 million people. Monday's clashes were the worst since security forces shot dead 106 machete-wielding militants on April 28.

 

At least 440 people have now been killed in the unrest, which started in January when guerrillas raided an army barracks, killed four soldiers and escaped with about 300 assault rifles.

 

As frogmen trawled a river for discarded weapons, police questioned 300 protesters at the barracks in Pattani to try to identify the protest organisers.

 

Police said they had recovered seven automatic rifles, a pistol, four hand grenades and machetes after the demonstration.

 

With an election looming, Thaksin is under increasing pressure to resolve the unrest, which analysts fear could turn the region into a fertile breeding ground for militant networks, such as southeast Asia's al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah.

 

"It's all building up to the point where we're in serious danger of what is so far a rather serious law and order issue turning into a broader insurgency," said Steve Wilford of Singapore-based Control Risks Group.

 

Senior security officials admitted they had known that a rally was being planned a couple of days in advance but not the exact target. They could not figure out how several thousand people from different towns had massed at one location.

 

Despite a curfew imposed in eight districts of Narathiwat province after the clashes, militants set fire to a school building and burned tyres on several highways.

 

Since January, there have been almost daily attacks on officials or symbols of the central government in the south. Victims have included both Buddhists and Muslims.

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kamui said:

It might be a stupid question, but was this an accident?

 

I would susppect so, but one never knows. Closed vehicle, leaking carbon monoxide from poorly maintained exhaust system, through old floor boards, 5 hours ............... sure could happen. Accident probably. Fault? ................... sure not the protestors 'fasting' for Ramadam.

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kamui said:

It might be a stupid question, but was this an accident?

 

Well, the Thai govt are claiming it's an accident but there are some suspicious claims about this one. For example, the new is reporting that the protestors were loaded into numerous trucks. I could see a problem with one truck but not multiple. Also, if these trucks were travelling in convoy, how could it be that they would not be aware that the victims were in touble. I suspect they used the trucks as some kind of cell, overcrowded, and left the people locked up in the heat.

 

Taksin's comment about the fasting causing the deaths is unbelievable, especially during Ramadan. I was watching CNN and they reported Taksin's comment. It sounds really bad to the outside world - VERY embarrassing for the CEO.

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Taksin's comment about the fasting causing the deaths is unbelievable

--------------------------

Poor Thailand! Even considering the old saying: people have the govnmt they deserve..

Ranks up there with crying that the opposition (???) is telling taxi drivers to badmouth him to their customers, but my favorite is still advocating the use of Natl Geo. staff ("they do it for free") to investigate that (long gone) gold hidden in a Kanburi cave.

 

Please, tell me he was joking all the time! ::

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Mr T is all heart! Remember earlier this year when some Islamic radicals attacked a Thai Army base, beating a couple of sentries to death and slitting the throat of another? Mr T said the soldiers "deserved to die".

 

 

 

 

p.s. The encyclopedia entry is strange, to say the least. e.g. "Surasi" was Rama I's prince? He was Rama I's full brother and the mahauparat (designated heir to the throne). Non-biased histories describe the Malay states as sort of robber baron fiefdoms, not a glorious united kingdom as this sounds like.

 

And "During World War II, Thailand was an ally with Japan and allowed its southern territory to invade British dependencies and colonies on the Malay peninsular." Huh? How did the southern territories invade Malaya? In fact, the Japanese invaded Thailand first before moving on to invade Malaya and go for Singapore.

 

Whoever wrote this piece is a bit confused. I have never seen anything indicating a British promise of Pattani independence. Quite the contrary, how could the Brits set up an independent Malay state while denying their own Malayan colony its freedom? If there was such a promise, it was unofficial and probably never meant to happen.

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This would be quite an 'accident'...as even if one tried the old movie cliche route of self-ending: letting the car idle in the garage for hours....

It is a highly ineffective process. The only 'succesfull' result that have seen is when a garden hose was fed directly into the window from the exhaust pipe and the window closed.

The examiner still stated that it took " a number of hours" for the victim to suffocate.

So, a moving truck- for sure with 'leaky floorboards' sounds not very airtight indeed.

Maybe the same detectives that work on those mystery 'suicides' that involve the bag over the head and hands bound behind the victims bodies were on this CONVOY CAPER as well....

::laters,

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Not an accident.

 

1300 people rounded up and put in a few trucks. The number of trucks used has not been disclosed. Over crowding coupled with the heat, definetly would cause some deaths. No need to have a brain to figure that out.

 

Thai people that I know, are taking on a hatred for Moslems just like the rest of the world is doing. I saw some Moslems walking on the street today. Each one looked very aprehensive.

 

I suspect the problem is the people who were protesting, were viewed as terrorist. Being terrorist, they deserved the right to die. In most countries, the right to assemble is now looked at as an act against the government, that is, if the group assembling are moslems.

 

As visitors to this country, it should be interesting if pay back will arrive.

 

This news along with the news of 377 tons of high explosive disappearing out of Iraq does provide worry for the traveler.

 

It should be interesting to see what happens with the 377 tons of explosives.

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